Motoring
Germans do it better
Alan Judd
Ipondered, as model after model flashed past me on the way to North Wales, why it is that I've never owned a BMW. More to the point is why, after a lifetime of hanker- ing after almost anything with four wheels or more, I've never even coveted the motor industry's allegedly perfect driving machine. They are supposed to have a number of the automotive virtues I admire: reliability, durability, painstaking workman- ship, comfort, looks, effortless perfor- mance, yet they remain an itch I've never had. Like some beautiful people, they strike me as strangely neuter.
I think I could imagine myself into fancy- ing the 7 series, the big fat ones. Even there, though, the design is a touch too sleek to be truly gratifying but they have more presence than their svelte siblings. I accept as an article of faith that all BMWs are excellent to drive, and to those who say that perfection is monotonous I suggest a Wednesday evening rush-hour spent in London's Blackwall Tunnel tending some- thing 'interesting' and `characterful', as I once did. The consequent traffic jam was mentioned on the Six O'clock News. It has to be an article of faith because I last drove a BMW about a quarter of a century ago when I helped bring a 2500 from Morayshire to London. It drove well; better than I did, really, since such cars seduce you into driving faster than you should.
Nor is it that I have anything against German cars. I like them and I admire the solid and careful workmanship for which this country was once known. Our VWs have been utterly dependable and on the Wales trip the fully-laden Passat estate proved so averse to diesel that it refused to drink more than a gallon every 58 miles. I've never had an Audi but that's because they've only recently impinged upon my consciousness; there's a pleasing compact strength about the models of recent years that speaks of quality.
Mercedes are the tops, however. I've owned four, all rather old, and was recently reminded of their virtues when allowed to drive a four-wheel drive Estate and a GD, the Mercedes equivalent of a Landrover. If a grateful nation, seeking some small and unembarrassing gesture, wished to honour me with a new car, Mercedes would be a very serious contender. I like their manu- facturing quality, their interior space and simplicity, their unabashed bulk and squareness. The view along a Mercedes bonnet is one of the best and the sense of weight, safety and unstressed power is unmatched. The mere look and feel of their switches and door handles sets them apart. I regret their recent successful diver- sion into smaller saloons with not enough room in the back; and view with foreboding the forthcoming teeny-weeny town car that would fit into the boot of a real Mercedes. Doubtless it will be well made and with luck it will come to the rescue of Daimler Benz, in trouble because of their expensive German workers, but it is a sad decline for the car that was not only every VIP's status symbol and every successful businessman's reliable, now-depreciating asset but, even- tually, every other African taxi-driver's liv- ing. That is real durability.
So what's wrong with BMWs? Probably nothing; the lack must be in me. I imagine they are what they look — fast and efficient — but the problem is that I want them to be something other as well. I'm not going to get mystical about 'character' — though there are cars that have it, just as there are friendly cars and cold cars — and I don't think they're boring. It's just that there's something about the shapes of all but the larger models that doesn't quite touch me. If I were rich and powerful and became the target of beautiful and manipulative women, similarly fast and efficient, it prob- ably wouldn't work because their willing- ness to appear whatever they thought I wanted is precisely what would inoculate me against them. Ditto the perfect driving machine: I want it to look as if it's trying to do more than appeal to me, as if it stands also for something else. But it is a quarter of a century since I drove one.
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